Confessions of a weight-loss cyclist (UK)

For 10 years Frank Kinlan's bike remained unused and gathering dust in his attic. He piled on the pounds and did no exercise, but refused help to lose weight. Then one morning, weighing 21 stones (133kg) Frank decided he had to do something. "One morning I looked in the mirror and thought that I had got to do something, so I picked the phone up and got an assessment with my local health trust." Frank was morbidly obese, with a BMI (body mass index) of 42. "I was massive, with a 46-48 inch waist, and I found it difficult to get clothes to fit," he said. Assessors told Frank, aged 49 who is from the Wirral, that he needed to lose weight and exercise more. They signed him up for their initial 12-week course, which used British Heart Foundation guidelines. But the idea of exercise was an anathema to Frank, who was so worried about the effect of his weight on his health and his extremely high blood pressure, that he was doing nothing. "I had slowed my life down to an absolute nothing and did nothing. The diet was bad and I was probably on the verge of diabetes and some other problems," he said. "I would be out of breath going up the stairs because I was winded carrying the extra weight. "I turned up at the first class and they told me to do 30 minutes of exercise a day, five days a week." So Frank decided to get on his bike and do something about it. "Welcome to the world of overweight cycling," he says. At first he was just doing short runs, but gradually he started to drop the pounds and set up a blog to record his progress, initially just for the others on his course - BBC